The
Melody Maker Review.I kept this copy of the Mag for the past 26 years,
but the original is too tatty to scan, So I've laboriously typed out
the whole thing . I've kept the format of the original as far as possible,
graphics, columns and all.

Bickershaw, near Wigan, Sunday. In a sleazy crummy press tent just 200 puddles
away from the main stage, a festival organizer, greasy through
lack of sleep, attempted to explain just what had gone wrong and
what had gone right with Bickershaw.
The facts were quite simple actually. The organizers
, a group of local businessmen, would be forking out around 180.000
pounds for the whole affair. Only around 25,000 people paid to get
in at around two quid each. You dont have to be a wizard at maths
to figure that Bickershaw ran at an incredible loss.

THE DAY THE MUSICDROWNED.

It ran
through three days of amazing weather too. When it rains in Lancashire
, it really pulls the whole trick, so it was mud -rock, wet bottoms
and a hellishly cold wind.

But, said organizer Jeremy Beadle " musically
its been a success and as a festival its been a success . Nobody could
complain about the facilities. And theres been no trouble".

Facilities. Well,
even the best festival facilities would do a dog little justice. What
Bickershaw threw up for all to see was something removed from money ,
or from organizers- it was sheer guts and bravery on behalf of an
audience that at all times would have stupefied the most hardened war
veteran .

Like at 4;30 am on Sunday
morning with rain falling as thick as curtains on ground that's already
a living , oozing mess, there comes a massive cheer.
You see kids , their trousers and pumps fused to their legs
with mud and filth, faces puffy and lost looking , suddenly get up and
boogie.

At times , when theres no music, you just
see dark hordes , moody and sullen ,wrapped in wet blankets, counting
pennies for a coffee and a Wagon Wheel, which is maybe breakfast. You
can't help wondering why the hell they don't go home.
There were few bands who walked away without some puzzled
admiration for the people who came to see them . But its not just music
that brings these people to festivals. There were often more people walking
around during sets than sitting listening .

Within the fences - broken flat in places -that
surrounded Bickershaw, -lay the actors in a mythical plot of rock music
, peace and love. Mythical , most certainly. See it all in one eyeful
and it indeed looks fantastical and magical. Take a walk through it and
take many eyefuls and its the most depressing spectacle. Its pitiful.

Four thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire (remember
John Lennon ) and at nearby Bickershaw there were 30.000 , each
filled with a body that clapped , freaked , attempted sleep, ate hot spuds,
gravy and peas , clapped again , got wet, freaked -for three days.
They'll get no filthier than Bickershaw- and there will be
fewer audiences that are warmer at the coldest moments . And there was
some mighty good music around from a predominantly American bill.

As Sunday progressed, many people
finally cracked and made for home. But a core of 15,000 took everything
that Mother Nature offered and stayed for the Grateful Dead and got what
they'd been waiting for -because the Dead blew a bigger storm.

Wigan could never have been dirtier. Its streets filled with litter,
bottles , cans , even discarded shoes. Gardens full of wrappers and a
playground heaped high with junk and rubbish.
They had left a darned big mess - and even
offered good pay, few stayed to clean itup.

Friday.

Hawkwind,
hampered by sound problems and inadequate lighting, perform - ed
like desperate men. They played as if they were playing for their lives
beneath the shadow of a noose.

Bob Calvert was back on stage as lead
singer and narrator, presumably recovered from his psychological crash
and Vox had given them equipment to replace that stolen two weeks ago.

But on stage , space or spaced out music has to
be subtler than a parallel representation of the vast expanses between
stars . Hawkwind spin along through out the vast eternal plan until
the immensity of it all approaches monotony.

There's no opportunity for the
listener to to sleep out the journey in sub zero temperatures .
Instead there is one continuous rhythm that that rarely varies and seldom
stops. Friday night saw the introduction of part of the groups new
space opera All deeply imaginative . with the screen behind showing
alternating flashes of stars and the moon face and Joe's Lights
characteristic star flapping through space like a jettisoned body
.

But Hawkwind tended to manipulate their subject
matter with the approach of schoolboys. Imagination and enthusiasm
where there, but the artistic precision and discipline needed to mould
the primal matter of space were not . There are degrees of ambiguity that
are virtually meaningless in terms of human consciousness

It wasn't exactly easy for Rock groups to be heard over the festival
sound system.

For one man and his acoustic guitar , the
problem was that much more acute . Johnathon
Kelly struggled to put his songs across. The audience was
eventually won around, partly because Kelly wisely confined himself
to his faster , rock orientated songs. Once people were in a Kelly
mood they vibrated to his choruses and grunted approvingly to air their
frustrations.

By Kelly's standards it was unusually low key,. His set culminated
with the superb Cursed Anna's stare, as good
a culmination as anyone can come up with.
With so many loaded clouds floating around and an unwelcome sou'and
nor west force eight wind making itself at home a spot of rock and
roll found a few admirers - the time being about 2 am.

Wishbone Ash
provide this welcome heaviness, being greeted on all sides by lengthy
applause and other signs of approval. Wishbones music was comparatively
simple , composed of well known riffs and rhythms strung together tightly.

But the time was right for such as this , Lead guitar
produced some expansive sounds and the group had the gift of cutting into
the heaviness with a contrasting notes at particularly convincing times The group was favoured
by being on stage at the right time for heavy music rather then by any
innate gift for producing musical miracles.

Dr John
Who was this man who
thousands awaited? Doctor
John, he sang in reply. So predictably strange and yet surprisingly human.

First came the band and
then the opening bars.
Bickershaw was fill of eyes, waiting for the Doctor to appear.

At a suitably tense interval
he was there ,wading on
stage like Liberace under
Lunar gravity conditions.
DJ was all in white, top hat
and tails . From a shoulder
bag he plucked handfuls
of glitter, discharging them
with zombie abandon .
Simulated magic dust.

On stage he moved ,
dancing with the speed
of a hippo and the
enchanting ungainliness
of a cantering giraffe. It was no the time for indulging in scenes of
of weird individuality.
Dr John sensed it . You wanna li'l rock and roll ?- he asked
.
Yep Doc we sure do.

Ok here goes.
A little boogieing on the guitar and a little more
on the piano. His captivating black female songsters
cooed and fluttered and in the background was the plain earthy
accompan- iment of the brass section.
There were words that people understood and
words that were completely unintelligible to the average
English mind. Voodoo chants and magic rattles, Twelve bars and Louisiana
blues. As he waded on , so the Doctor plodded off . In procession
followed by his captivating black female songsters . Doctor John had cast a few touches of glitter
into the night time drizzle.

Saturday.
Jazz fought hard to gain a foothold amidst the rock and achieved
a fair degree of success. It was particularly pleasant to see the Maynard
Ferguson Band go down so well on Saturday . Especially as
the band were in such remarkable form.

Maynard has never played so well as he is doing now. Gone
were any hints of a fluff or split. None of his high note work sounded
in the least erratic . It was sheer trumpet power that blew like a gale
from those incredible chops. Having seen Maynard play on many occasions
in extremely varied settings , it was heart warming to hear his music
being accepted and cheered.
The sound system was just right for the band , with a good balance
and even the bass and piano could be heard. Randy Jones was in fine fettle
and played one of the few drum solos of the day. Brian Jones tenor and
soprano work was powerful and exciting. Tunes ranged from John Lennon's
Mother, A slow
blues that later featured Maynard on valve Trombone and some steaming
soprano sax to Eli's Coming and a funky
Hey Jude
The trumpet section were almost as high in attack as
the leader, but nobody could beat the head blowing tweet that Ferguson
just forced through his horn in finale to Jude. His tone seemed about
a mile wide as he blew in the more conventional range of the instrument.
I really had a ball up there said Maynard
later. Everybody in the band feels the music and
doesn't have any hang ups about playing . We like playing the rock things
because its real.

All the jazz was crammed into the early Saturday
morning set, which didn't give Brotherhood
of Breath much of a chance in front of cold , sleepy audience.
The Mike Westbrook Band
fared better. The Westbrook Band got a very good response from a cold
tired audience . Down on the Farm ,a new
piece , was particularly good and Paul Minton sang Morning
Song and Technology.

Saturday afternoon.

Midday actually saw red hot sunshine and a somewhat temporary
feeling that it was all going to be nicely blissful. But then before
you could blink an eye, the clouds were back again and a nasty wind blew
on the stage.

But the sun came out again- this time in the form of Linda
Lewis , playing her biggest gig to date. Remarkable how
this lady can capture any audience within a matter of minutes.
She stood and sang her happy songs, showing no nerves , no tension
and reaching the most amazing pitches with her voice. Hampstead
way and Jasmine Junky were cut
out so sweetly that that one began to wonder if anybody was actually
daring to breathe amongst the audience.